If I Never Knew You
by AlwaysNameless
Summary: A different outcome. Pocahontas' ache to be with her soul mate forces her to reconsider her future.


**Hey Friends! This is a writing challenge for FrancescaG's Contest! Posted below are the details.**

**1. Must re-write a chapter or scene from a classic story (movie or book).**  
**2. The Character cannot accomplish what they did in the original chapter or scene.**  
**3. Character must get into a big fight or argument with someone they thought was a friend.**  
**4. Story must contain this line of dialogue: "My Grandmother could have drawn that quicker than you, and she has arthritis in every finger."**  
**5. Story must be between 3 and 8 pages long.**

If I Never Knew You

Her pulse raced forward without her permission. The unknown was too terrible to think about, but it was nothing she could stop. One final step and she left the solitary corn field, the green stocks swaying behind her.

She was nothing if not full of courage. It seemed to be born within her and she could not help it. So why was this so frightening? Was it because she knew this was the last time she would see him? She had not had enough time yet to even realized that she loved him, much less even to express that love to him. A kiss. One kiss was all they had shared. Would the spirits really be this cruel as to take him away from her already?

She walked further up the narrow path, the ground soft and familiar beneath her bare feet. A weathered tent lie just ahead, two warriors left to stand guard at the only entrance. The air was cool this night, but fire burned in the hearts of her tribe, and most importantly, her father. He, who right now resided with the council planning the sunrise, where the drums of war would begin their song.

"Where are you going, Pocahontas?" A familiar hand grabbed at her wrist stopping her progress.

"Nakoma, please-let me pass." She pleaded with her lifelong friend, placing a comforting hand on her her shoulder.

"What?" Nakoma looked aghast. "No. I can't believe how selfish you are being! You shouldn't be anywhere near that savage!"

"Nakoma, no-you don't understand." A moment passed between them, Pocahontas silently pleading for her friend to understand, like she always did. "Please, my friend. I love him. I must see him."

"You love him!" Nakoma shook her head in frustrated disbelief. "You are acting like a child-just like you always do! A reckless child! You don't know what love is. Kocoum loved you-and that savage in there killed him!"

Pocahontas pulled her wrist away from her friend.

"I was trying to look after you, like always." Nakoma continued. "I sent Kocoum after you because I was worried for you. And look what has happened! I told you before, stay away from him. He's dangerous."

"-Stop it. You're acting like my father."

"Good! Somebody needs to." Nakoma hissed back at her.

"I'm not going to fight with you."

"Then leave this place, Pocahontas." Nakoma asked her, gently taking her hand again.

She looked longingly ahead at the tent. "I can't." She whispered painfully.

"Then you may as well say goodbye to me as well. I won't be able to look you in the eyes again after you dishonor Kocoum like this."

She was taken back. Her heart was beating painfully against her chest. She couldn't believe that her closest friend, someone she counted as her only sister, someone she loved, would say these things. She felt betrayed. Anger threatened to bite back at her. But no-it would do no good. It would only delay her further.

She looked at the girl who stood between her and the tent beyond. Somehow, she felt that she had already lost her. Something had broken between them, and she didn't know if it could be fixed. Everything inside her wanted to fix it, but her heart was pulling her forward and she had to follow it, no matter the cost.

The loss she was about to experience was overwhelmingly sharp and heavy on her soul. The sting of tears finally making their appearance were unwelcome but unstoppable in their course. She stepped around her once friend and sister and continued on, to the man imprisoned inside the tanned and weathered tent. It's flaps swayed back and forth with the breeze, beckoning her to enter.

"I would like to look into the eyes of the man who killed Kocoum." She stated simply to the warrior guards, knowing that the truth would not gain her entry.

"Be quick." They stepped aside for the daughter of the chief, not questioning her loyalty.

But she was loyal, she knew. She was loyal to herself and to her heart. So she went on, without the feeling the guilt to burden her shoulders.

Her heart fell to pieces when she saw him, kneeling in the dirt, his wrists raw from the ropes that held his arms behind the wooden stake in the ground. His clothes were dirty and crumpled, his head downcast.

She could not stop herself and ran to him. He looked back quickly in fear, but a smile of surprise and love pushed it away almost immediately.

"Pocahontas." And her name on his lips was like air for her to breath. And she knew she had made the right choice by coming here.

"I'm so sorry," she said, pressing her face to his chest, wanting the comfort of his touch.

"For what? This?" Not the least bit of anger touched his voice. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled herself close to him in the darkness.

"I've gotten out of worse scrapes than this." He almost joked. "Can't think of any right now, but..." He smiled warmly at her.

She pulled slightly away from him, the guilt filling her up inside. "It would have been better if we had never met at all. Then none of this would have happened." She confessed to him.

"Pocahontas, look at me." He waited until she responded, then continued to try and reassure her. "I'd rather die tomorrow, then live a hundred years without knowing you." And his eyes never left her's. His words so completely sincere, she could not doubt him. Nor did she want to.

The gift he had just given her was priceless, and worth everything she was about to lose in order to be here and receive it.

A cool breeze swept in from the opening above them, and wound around their bodies, pushing them closer together. Although it was her arms around him, his warmth covered her like a blanket and she yearned to stay with him through the night.

"You must go, my love." John whispered to her. "They shouldn't find us like this. It's too late for me already. You still have a life to live here."

A few hot tears fell down her face and she wiped them away into her dark hair.

"I can't." And she held him tighter than before, as if she could keep him safe while her arms remained around him.

He let her hold him for a while longer, for he knew as soon as she left, his life would be empty again. He did not speak these things aloud, but he knew that he was ready to face his death tomorrow. Because the alternative, was an empty life without her. For how could he keep her after all that has happened?

He only hoped that she did not feel the same way. That after he was gone, she would be able to move forward without him.

But he also knew himself better than that. Although he would never speak them aloud, his thoughts were already starting to war inside his own mind. He couldn't stop the small piece of him that wanted her to be as deeply in love with him as he was with her.

Her warm arms tightened around him again, perhaps for the last time-and he banished the previous thoughts away. It was too painful to consider the possibility that she may not recover from this loss.

"Goodbye, my love." He said to her.

She held on for one more wonderful moment, and then released him.

She ran.

She ran away from him, away from her tribe, her home, her family, away from everything. A full moon lit the darkness ahead of her and finally, winded and wind-blown, she found her destination. The only place she could bring herself to.

On the far side of the thick forest, the fire of war was consuming the minds of the strange people that resided there.

"At daybreak, we attack!" Shouted an irate Governor Ratcliffe.

"Yeeaaaahhhhh!" The crowd yelled back their approval. A fire roared from the pit in front of them, setting their faces alight with the flames that Ratcliffe was working fiercely to fan inside them as well.

Thomas stood back, apart from the crowd. He looked at the gun in his hands, thought of John and the reason he was in this mess, and was disgusted with himself. A burly man came over and patted Thomas roughly on the back.

"You with us, Thomas?" The big man asked him.

He did not answer, but continued to stare on at the half drunken crowd. The burly man swung a sword around toward Thomas. He pulled a long knife from his belt and caught the edge of the sword, pushing it away. He may be younger than the others, but he was far quicker than this gerthy man trying to get an answer out of him.

"Ahhh, come on now," He slurred a little. "My Grandmother could have drawn that quicker than you, and she has arthritis in every finger."

Thomas sheathed his knife, picked up his gun and walked away from the insanity that he once wanted so badly to be a part of.

"They're going to kill him at sunrise, Grandmother Willow." Pocahontas kneeled in front of her, defeated.

"You have to stop them." The Willow answered her.

Her head sank in to her hands, streaked with earth from the ground. Her sorrow was beginning to overtake her and she couldn't breath.

"I can't."

"Child, remember your dream-"

"I was wrong, Grandmother Willow, I followed the wrong path. I feel so lost." And she did feel lost. John held half of who she was now, and she was completely empty without him.

"Child, what is love worth? What risk is too high for it?

Pocahontas looked up at her; a gentle, wrinkled face, wise and probably already knowing what she would do. Was there nothing that she did not know?

She stood, and a beam of golden-red light shown through the willowed branches. It's brilliance blinded her, and Pocahontas, throwing not only caution, but herself as well to the wind, her feet set sail beneath her.

Weaving between every tree that stood between her and her love, she flew threw the forest. The rocks and earth below her feet were a familiar friend after all this time, and she trusted them to not trip her up now. Not when every second was life or death-her life or her death. For even if she was too late, she knew that her heart would not survive the loss of her soul mate.

So she ran, again. And the wind seemed to urge her forward, pushing her body along the path to her future. Did the wind already know her fate? She could feel it! The spirits of the earth pushing her to face whatever it may be, and her feet moved even faster than before.

The light broke through the trees, as Pocahontas soared from between them, her dark hair wild and blowing fiercely behind her. She never hesitated, and pushed her body even harder when she caught sight of what may be the last beautiful sunrise to ever warm her face.

"I don't know what I can do-still I know that I must try! Eagle help my feet to fly, Mountain help my heart be quiet, Spirits of the earth and sky-please don't let it be too late!" She cried out to the wind, her feet finally reaching the bottom of Eagle's Cliff, the tribe almost to the top. Dust blew up in the air from the multitude of feet, stinging her eyes.

Her body weaved left and right between her people, pushing them aside for the future she was desperately running to. Saying a final goodbye to each of them as her feet left them behind in defiance of the normal life expected of her.

The rays of light blinded her once more as she broke through the front of the group. Her father, a silhouette in the distance, a blunt weapon already raised high above her love. She let her heart draw her forward the final few steps, crying out for her John, for her love.

She felt his warmth beneath her as she lay her body down for his protection. For that moment, she felt whole, and right, and finally she knew her fate. She knew where she belonged. With with keeper of her soul, wherever he may go.

And death claimed two lovers that red morning. But it claimed them as one.


End file.
